Volkl Gem Skis - Women's 2012

Volkl Gem Skis - Women's 2012: From hitting boxes and rails to charging the entire mountain over, the Volkl Gem Skis offer all the tech and design you needs. A brand new addition to the women's freeskiing series, the Gem Skis are an all mountain twin tip ski with a sidecut of 111-81-104. It also features a Sensorwood Light core and Toughbox for durability and enhanced performance regardless of where you take it on the mountain.

Shape

Full Camber is for skiers who still enjoy the feel of traditional camber. While not as silky-smooth as a rockered ski, full camber provides stability and acceleration for skiers wanting a more classic ride quality.

Construction

Tough Box construction features a Multi-Layer wood core wrapped with a Composite/Fiberglass sheath to create the ultimate resilience and snap for freeskiing models. Surrounding the core in the mid-body of the ski, it adds snap, strength and binding screw retention.

Flex

Multi-Layer Wood Light Core has two different densities of wood. In the binding attachment area, a dense, Ash core is used, while in the rest of the ski, the core is Poplar. The more dense wood creates secure screw retention and stability, while the softer poplar section allows for resilience and snap. The flex pattern can be tailored to each ski model to match the desired performance characteristics.

Sensorwood Light Core is CNC milled using vertically laminated wood.

Binding Compatibility

We recommend a brake width that is equal to the ski waist width and at most 15 mm wider.

Specs

Terrain:All-Mountain, Park & Pipe

All-Mountain

All-mountain skis are designed to handle anything you throw at them including powder, ice, groomers, steeps, heavy snow, and everything in between, but they aren’t necessarily a master of any one terrain. If you’re only going to own one ski to do it all, this is what you want. All-mountain skis generally have what we call mid-fat waists that range from 80-110 mm.

Park & Pipe

Park and pipe skis, often called freestyle skis, are for skiers who spend the majority of their time on jumps, rails, and jibs of all kinds. Traditionally park and pipe skis have narrower waists with full camber profiles, but this category is incorporating more rocker patterns and different shapes. You will almost always find these skis with twin tips as well as other park specific features like thicker, more durable edges, dense extruded bases, and butter zones.

Ability Level:Beginner-Intermediate

Beginner-Intermediate

Someone who is new to the sport or working on linking smoother turns falls into this ability level. Typical beginner ski/snowboard qualities include: softer materials, narrower widths, and capped constructions. The idea is to create a ride that is easy to turn and very forgiving in case you become off balance or fall in the back seat. The addition of rocker in the tip and tail gives a catch-free feeling and shorter contact length when the ski/snowboard is flat on the snow, making it easier to turn.

Rocker Type:Camber

Camber

Camber is the traditional profile for skis offering skiers lots of edge hold, especially on harder snow. A cambered ski has a smooth arch underfoot and contact points near the tip and tail when unweighted. Camber skis excel at carving on hard snow; you won’t ever see a ski racer on anything other than cambered skis.

Core/Laminates:Wood

Tail Type:Full Twin Tip

Full Twin Tip

Desinged to allow you to ski backwards, full twin tips are found primarily on park & pipe skis and freestyle powder skis. More and more, we are seeing twin tips on all-mountain skis of all abilities, as it makes it a little easier to get around, and for the most part does not inhibit forward skiing.

These are really fun skis. I am an advanced downhill skier, but just recently started venturing into the park. These are perfect for the whole mountain. So far, I've taken them out 3 times (to Steamboat) and they're fun in the powder and in the park. I recommend them if you want to try out park skiing.

This is my first pair of downhill skis and I absolutely love them - my skiing and enjoyment improved greatly on these. They're light, lively, and very responsive. Initiating turns is easy. Haven't had too much chatter.

I consider myself an Advanced Beginner - Intermediate and ski somewhat cautiously on blues and easy blacks. Used these in substantial powder once and they didn't work so well but I think it might have been operator error - I'm used to lumpy bumpy ice and crud.

Paired these with Look NX Exclusive Lifter bindings, which also happen to be color-coordinated. Graphics are fun - I get a lot of comments on them. Definitely recommend getting these if you're looking for a responsive ski.